BBC1's fundraiser, which at various times was hosted by James Corden, Davina McCall, Richard Hammond, Patrick Kielty and Fearne Cotton, peaked with 9.411 million (40.4%) between 8pm and 8.15pm.

Sport Relief lost out to ITV1's first edition of Coronation Street, watched by 7.971 million (34.1%) between 7.30pm and 8pm, but beat the second Friday edition of the soap, which had 6.639 million (26.7%) viewers between 8.30pm and 9pm. Sport Relief averaged 8.048 million over the same 30-minute period.

ITV1's Michael Winner's Dining Stars came to an end with just 1.92 million (8%) between 9pm and 10pm, the lowest audience of its four-part run.

The Winner show was beaten by Channel 4's Embarrassing Bodies, which suffered a big drop in last week's audience, down nearly a million to 2 million (8.3%) with another 233,000 on Channel 4 +1.

It also lost out to the last of BBC2's Monty Don series, Mastercrafts, watched by 2.013 million, but beat Channel Five's The Mentalist, which had 1.821 million viewers (7.6%).

Sport Relief also gave BBC2 a ratings boost, when it switched channels to make way for the BBC1 10pm news bulletin, averaging 5.041 million on BBC2 between 10pm and 10.30pm.

BBC2's Sport Relief half hour beat the BBC News, which had 3.977 million (19.2%) and ITV1's News at Ten, with 1.56 million (7.6%).

Sport Relief returned to BBC1 with 3.267 million viewers (34.7%) between 10.35pm and 1am.

Channel 4's coverage of the Cheltenham festival averaged 839,000 viewers (10.6%) between 12.30pm and 4.15pm. It peaked between 3.15pm and 3.30pm as 1.843 million viewers (22.5%) tuned in to watch Imperial Commander's win in the Gold Cup.

The former Trigger Happy TV star Dom Joly's documentary about Tintin, Dom Joly and the Black Island, was watched by 371,000 viewers (1.6%) on Channel 4 between 7.30pm and 8pm, with another 45,000 viewers on Channel 4 +1.

Channel Five's Building the Ultimate repeat, about aircraft carriers, had 357,000 viewers (1.5%) between 7.30pm and 8pm.

BBC2's Coast repeat was watched by 1.594 million viewers (7.1%) between 7pm and 8pm.

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